


Hot and Cold

by LessAttitudeMoreAltitude



Series: 2018 Whumptober [6]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Flashbacks, Past Child Abuse, Whumptober, multi chapter drabble, prompts, their rotten luck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-07-28 15:57:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16244990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LessAttitudeMoreAltitude/pseuds/LessAttitudeMoreAltitude
Summary: Ezra and Kanan crash land on an unknown moon and need to figure out how to survive until the Ghost can find themWhumptober prompts:1) Stranded2) Broken Ribs3) Harsh Climate4) Drowning5) Hypothermia6) Fever7) Manhandled8) Caregiver





	1. Stranded

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I promise I'm working on The Undeserving (and my minibang piece), but I couldn't pass up Whumptober. I'm forcing myself to write ONLY drabbles so it doesn't take up too much of my time
> 
> This chapter's prompt: Stranded

“Phantom to Ghost! Can you read me?!” Kanan shouted into the comm. **  
**

Ezra watched nervously as they approached the moon at an alarming speed. “Kanan…”

“I know!” Kanan growled. He was furiously working the controls, trying to steer the Phantom upward. “It’s no use… that TIE must have knocked out our stabilizers!”

“What does that mean?!”

“It means, we’re going to have a very exciting landing!

The alarms in the Phantom screamed as they entered the moon’s atmosphere. Kanan’s knuckles were white as he tried to keep the Phantom level. The shuttle broke through the clouds, revealing a black and rocky surface. Not conducive for a soft landing.

“Strap in NOW!” Kanan barked.

Ezra stumbled to one of the seats, yanking it down and fumbling with the straps as the shuttle shook and bucked violently. He barely managed to click his buckle together before the Phantom lurched and slammed into something. Ezra squeezed his eyes shut instinctively as his ears filled with screaming durasteel and the crunch of the hull against rock and gravel.

Then everything was still. The alarms had fallen silent.

His ears ringing and his limbs trembling, Ezra blinked his eyes open. At an initial glance, everything looked okay. Well, the viewport was cracked, but it wasn’t like there were loose panels and frayed wires sparking. Kanan was speaking into the comm. “Ghost? Phantom to Ghost…”

Ezra unbuckled and stood, moaning when the world swayed violently. He leaned heavily against the wall as he walked to to Kanan.

“Ghost…” Kanan closed his eyes for a moment, looking pained. “Spectre One to Ghost…”

The blood drained from Ezra’s face. “They… they know where we are… right?”

It took a moment for Kanan to look up at him, and when he did, what little hope Ezra was holding evaporated.

They were stranded.


	2. Broken Ribs

“What do we do now?” Ezra asked. **  
**

“Well…” Kanan unbucked himself. “I might be able to give the transponder a boost if - ” He suddenly let out a hiss of pain, gingerly pressing a hand to his side.

“Kanan?!” Ezra leaned over, looking for an injury or blood, but didn’t see anything.

“I’m fine…” he said through gritted teeth. “Think I just broke a rib…” He tried to stand up again, but ended up moaning again in a mixture of pain and frustration. “Or two.”

“ _Just_  broke a rib? You can’t even get up!”

Kanan waved him off. “Just grab the medkit and get me some Perigen.”

Ezra frowned. “Some… what?”

“They’re painkillers. Go!”

“Uh, r-right…” Ezra ran over and pulled the medkit out, opening it and searching for this Perigen stuff. “Are they, like, pills or…?”

“Just bring the kit over here,” Kanan said tiredly.

“No, I think I found them…” They were patches, labeled very clearly Perigen. Ezra also grabbed some wrap before running back over to Kanan and handing him the patch.

“Thanks,” Kanan mumbled, slowly lifting his shirt. With deliberately deep breaths, he peeled off the packaging and gently pressed the patch on.

“I also grabbed wrap.” Ezra held it up with a little shake.

“For what?”

“For…” Ezra indicated his ribs like it was obvious. “You know, to put some pressure on.”

Kanan shook his head. “Wrapping doesn’t do much except restrict your breathing. You’re more likely to get sick.”

“Oh.” Ezra gazed down at the wrap. “That actually makes a lot of sense…” he said quietly.

Kanan gazed up at Ezra, watching him fiddle with the wrap. “You okay, kid?”

“Y-Yeah, of course! I’m not the one with broken ribs.”

But Ezra’s face was pensive, as if lost in thought. “You’ve broken your ribs before,” Kanan stated.

It took a moment, but Ezra eventually nodded. “A few times. I heard you were supposed to wrap broken ribs, so I did too. And it made it hurt less so it seemed okay.” He gave a small cringe. “But one time… I did get really sick. I thought it was just rotten luck.”

Kanan placed a hand on Ezra’s shoulder to bring him back in the present. He gave a reassuring smile, reminding him that that wasn’t his life anymore.

Ezra smiled back, silently acknowledging the reminder.

“Alright…” Kanan turned back to the control panel. “Now to get this transponder working…”


	3. Harsh Climate

“O-Okay…” Ezra stuttered, his teeth chattering in the cold. “I-I got it hooked up.”

Kanan pulled the thermal blanket tighter around him. “Is it flashing?”

Ezra nodded, placing the transponder down and curling up against the wall, burying all but his face below his blanket. 

“So all we can do is wait…” Kanan said quietly.

“Great,” Ezra said sarcastically. “W-We get to just sit here and wait until we f-freeze to death.”

“We’re not going to freeze to death.” Kanan checked the monitor. “The Phantom is insulated enough that it shouldn’t even drop down to zero.”

Ezra rolled his eyes. “So w-we’ll only freeze a  _ little _ .”

Kanan frowned, eyeing his padawan carefully. Ezra was trembling pretty hard, curled up in a shockingly tiny ball underneath his blanket. With a hand on his side for support, Kanan pushed himself up from the seat and settled back down next to Ezra with a slightly exaggerated groan of pain.

Ezra’s body stiffened as he glanced at him questioningly. “W-What are you d-doing?”

“We’ll stay warmer if we share body heat,” Kanan said as he draped his blanket over the both of them. 

Ezra’s frown deepened as he watched. “I-I’m fine…”

“Uh huh,” Kanan said, wrapping his arm around Ezra’s shaking shoulders. It was telling when his padawan leaned up against his side, albeit only slightly.  _ He still so small… _ Kanan noticed. He could feel Ezra’s bones still poking out from his worn flight suit. Nearly three months of living on the Ghost, and he’s hardly gained a pound. No wonder the kid was so cold. 

Making a mental note to get the kid on a more fattening diet, Kanan made sure his blanket was engulfing them both. 

“I-I’m okay…” Ezra weakly protested, even as his trembling started to cease.

“Well, I’m not,” Kanan said in attempt to preserve some of Ezra’s pride. He squeezed the boy’s shoulders. “Just let me use you as a hot water bottle, okay?”

With a small sigh, Ezra nodded. He curled in on himself, and little by little, he relaxed against Kanan’s side

Hopefully they wouldn’t have to wait long for help to come. 


	4. Drowning

As the hours passed, it became evident that they were going to have to take certain measures to survive. First and foremost being to find water. **  
**

“You are not going by yourself!”

“It’s not even a quarter-klick away!” Ezra said, securing the blanket around his body as tightly as possible. “You can barely even stand.”

“And you’re a kriffing popsicle! I don’t want you out there in the sub-freezing cold all alone.”

“I’ve got my comm and the scanner. I’ll be fine. If I can survive on the streets for eight years, I can handle a half-kilometer walk!”

“This isn’t Lothal, Ezra!”

“We  _need_  water!”

Kanan let out a growl of frustration, but Ezra knew he was right. He knew his master’s ribs were worse than he was letting on. He was in no condition to walk, let alone that far. They needed to plan for the long haul, and Ezra needed to go now before the sun set. They had no idea how long the nights were, and they needed water soon.

With a long sigh, Kanan rubbed his face. “Fine. But keep your comm channel open!”

Ezra rolled his eyes. “I will,” he promised. He opened the Phantom door, both of them shivering as the harsh wind hit them. “I’ll be back in a flash.”

The Phantom door closed behind him, and Ezra pushed forward in the direction the scanner said the water was. He was panting and cursing at how cold it was. Kanan didn’t seem to think it was that cold, but Ezra had grown up on a temperate planet. It almost never reached freezing. At least, not near Capital City.

“How you doing?” Kanan’s voice said over the comm.

“G-G-Great… J-Just p-perfect…”

It only took five minutes before Ezra stumbled upon the frozen pond of water. “A-Alright… ‘M h-here…” he panted.

Ezra put the comm in his pocket before gently stepping onto the ice. It was solid as a rock, so he walked over to a jagged column of ice. If he could break off a chunk, he could carry it back and they could melt it in the Phantom. He rammed his shoulder against it, hissing when the impact made his muscles ache in protest. It wasn’t that bad though, so he kept at it. He could feel it giving a little.

Then there was a loud cracking sound. “Ha!” Ezra exclaimed triumphantly as the chunk of ice fell off and landed on the frozen pond with a dull thud. He picked it up and pulled the comm out. “H-Headed b-b-back…”

Suddenly there was another loud crack. Ezra’s eyes widened as he looked back and saw that the column had splintered down its full length. Taking a step back, the ice made low moan, the crack spidering out from the column.

“Oh no.”

Ezra took another step towards the edge of the pond when the ice beneath him suddenly collapsed. He was plunged into the water, icy needles attacking his muscles from all directions. He instinctively gasped, the cold water flooding his lungs and making his insides turn to ice. Ezra jerked and thrashed, but the blanket wrapped even more tightly around him. He couldn’t move, his entire body was frozen inside and out, pain burned every inch of him as he twitched uselessly.

His last conscious thought was to scream for Kanan, but when he opened his mouth, no sound came out.


	5. Hypothermia

He was breathing. That was a good first step. That’s what Kanan focused on the entire grueling journey back to the Phantom. **  
**

Once he got inside and the door closed, Kanan collapsed to the ground with Ezra in tow, wheezing and panting. Every breath he took was like a vibroblade being stabbed into his side. His muscles were twitching from the cold and exhaustion from pulling a waterlogged Ezra out of the pond, resuscitating him, and dragging him back here.

Beside him, Ezra let out a small moan. His eyes fluttered open, and he tried to push himself up. “K’n…” That was when when he dissolved into a fit of chest-deep wet coughs, collapsing back onto the ground.

Kanan sat up with a groan, rolling Ezra onto his back. His eyes were half-lidded and unfocused. “Hey kiddo…” Kanan slapped his cheek gently. “You with me?”

Ezra’s eyes moved vaguely in his direction. “I… don’ know…” he slurred.

This wasn’t good. Ezra was hypothermic. Thinking back on training he got at the Temple, Kanan started to fumble with the fasteners on Ezra’s flight suit. He had to get him out of these wet clothes.

It wasn’t until Kanan started to peel the suit off of Ezra’s shoulders that he seemed to notice what Kanan was doing. His eyes widened, and he tried to weakly push Kanan’s hands away. “No…” he moaned.

“I’m sorry…” Kanan murmured. “But you can’t stay in these clothes.”

Ezra either didn’t hear or didn’t understand, because he started to struggle against Kanan, his body trembling from more than the cold now. “No… No…!”

And Kanan felt like the worst scum, but he had to do this. He cradled Ezra’s head in his hands. “Ezra, Ezra listen to me…”

Then something strange happened. There was a low hum, warm and safe, at the base of Kanan’s head. The moment he heard it, Ezra suddenly still, his eyes becoming more focused. “Kan’n…?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” Kanan whispered, rubbing his thumb over his padawan’s ice cold skin. “Listen: you’re hypothermic. I need to take your clothes off,” he said as calm and clinically as possible. “You need need skin to skin contact to warm you back up. Okay?”

Ezra wrapped his arms around himself, clearly confused but trying desperately to understand.

Then Kanan felt it again. The hum. This time, he could sense icy fear underlying what should have been something warm and bright.

That was when Kanan realized he was sensing Ezra. Not just through the Force but through a Force bond.

He’d have to contemplate it later. Right now, Ezra needed medical attention. “I’m just going to take off your boots, suit, and undershirt… Nothing else, I promise.” And through the bond, Kanan wrapped himself around his padawan’s fear and tried to soothe it. To reassure him that he was safe here with Kanan.

Several agonizingly long moments passed, but then Ezra slowly nodded his head. “O-Okay…” he murmured.

Kanan didn’t waste any more time. He took off the flight suit and peeled the undershirt off. He pointedly ignored the glassy look in Ezra’s eyes and the scars that littered his chest as he pulled his own sweater off, shivering as the cold air brushed up against him.

Then he took a deep breath, bracing himself. Kanan picked Ezra up, leaned up against the side of the Phantom, and held Ezra up against his chest. He hissed as the ice-cold skin pressed against his. Ezra let out a small moan in protest, his fear spiking. “Shh….” Kanan brushed his wet almost-frozen hair. “I’m not gonna hurt you…”

He grabbed their one remaining thermal blanket and wrapped it around the both of them. Kanan was rubbing Ezra’s back to try and get his temperature to rise.

Thankfully, his padawan’s fear was slowly melting away. On some level, he understood what Kanan was doing. He knew he was safe. His trembling was now entirely because of the cold.

Small victory.

Ezra tucked his head under Kanan’s chin, his breathing shuddering. Once again, Kanan was struck by just how small the kid was.

“It’s g-going t-to be o-okay…” Kanan murmured, holding Ezra tightly. “W-We're gonna b-be okay…”


	6. Fever

When Ezra woke up with his skin clammy and hot, his body burning like a furnace, only one thought entered his mind:  _Hide_. **  
**

His brain refused to process anything else. Not the fact that he wasn’t in the Phantom, not the fact that he was no longer paralyzingly cold, nor the fact he was once again fully clothed. He just knew he had to hide.

He scrambled along the floor until he found a vent. Vents were great. Most adults couldn’t fit properly in them, the stormtroopers weren’t able to get in at all… and most people avoided them anyway because they were gross and dirty.

Vents were great little havens.

Ezra’s hands scrambled along the edges of the vent, trying to pry it open. When it popped off, Ezra set it aside and quickly crawled it. He kept crawling until the light faded away. Then he came across a small nook

Small, dark, cramped, and dusty. Perfect.

Then he started coughing. Painful wet hacks that burned his lungs and throat. The dust only aggravated this, making it almost impossible for him to stop.

But eventually it did, tears falling down Ezra’s face as he panted, his body limp and sore. He managed to curl up some, enjoying the warm air blowing over him. His eyes drifted close, and he fell back asleep.

\---

“I’ve got him…”

“Kanan, your ribs…”

“The bone-knitter did its job. I’m fine.”

Hera watched as Kanan gently pulled Ezra out of the ventilation system. A haze of dust and other particles came out with him, making her cringe. “We need to get better about cleaning if this is going to become a regular thing.”

Kanan adjusted his grip so that Ezra was cradled to his chest. Ezra let out a small moan, but otherwise remained unconscious. “If we get him fed, hopefully the ensuing growth spurt will take care of that.”

Kanan gently placed his padawan back on the bed as Hera went to work putting the vent paneling back in place. He let out a sigh as he gently patted the dust off of Ezra’s clothes and hair. “Damn near gave us a heart attack, kid…” he mumbled.

Ezra’s only response was to shiver and curl up on his side. Shaking his head with a chuckle, Kanan grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around Ezra’s shoulders before sitting down next to the bed.

This time, they were going to keep an eye on him.


	7. Manhandled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: brief description of child molestation

Ezra remembered this day.

It was the crest of a crappy wave that compromised his crappy week. It started out with being kicked in the chest by a stormtrooper when he got caught swiping a jogan. He thought that alone was going to kill him. Every breath was agony. The pain was so bad he could barely sleep. He tried to wrap it up best he could with the pieces of cloth and paper he had found, but even that only helped a little bit.

Then as the days passed, Ezra noticed that it was getting harder and harder to breathe. His muscles hurt more than normal. He just felt tired all the time. So on top of his side being on fire, he was getting sick. It made him panic. The last time he was sick, his mother had tucked him into bed, his dad made him hot soup and sweet tea… But now he was alone. What was he supposed to do?  _ What was he supposed to do? _

Well, crying certainly didn’t help. Ezra had learned fast that crying did little except to attract unwanted attention. So he didn’t cry. Instead he kept his head down and hoped the sickness would just go away. It didn’t. It just got worse and worse. 

Then it started raining.

Which brought him back to this day. He was curled up next to a dumpster under an awning. It didn’t completely block the rain, but it kept him mostly dry. He had found some old newspapers and wrapped them around himself, shivering and sweating, completely miserable and almost completely unaware of the world.

“Hey kid… you alright?”

Ezra tried to look at the newcomer, but even the overcast sky was too bright for his sensitive eyes. He moaned, squeezing them back shut.

“You don’t look too good.” 

The voice was close. Right over him, in fact. Maybe this person was going to help make him feel better. But even as Ezra thought this, an instinct deep in his belly told him that something was wrong. 

“Here, lemme help you…” 

Ezra moaned as his layers of newspaper were being peeled away. This wasn’t helping. He was cold. He needed that!

Hands were all over him. Ezra frowned and tried to push them away. They were going through his pockets, turning him over despite his quiet protests. Later, Ezra would realize that this person was searching him. 

And they weren’t happy when they didn’t find anything. “Figures…” the person muttered.

Then the hands got rougher. They pulled at his clothes. His instinct started screaming at him. “No…” he moaned.

“Shh…” the voice said. “I’ll take good care of you.”

Their hands got more insistent. Then they grabbed his groin.

“NO!” Ezra screamed, somehow knocking the stranger backward. He scrambled to his feet, propelling himself forward. The world swayed, his muscles burned, and nausea rose up violently in him, but adrenaline and fear kept him running. The ground was slick and the rain pelted down on him, but he didn't care. He had to get out of there. He had to get away.

He slipped and fell onto the ground hard. He yelped out in pain, harsh sobs tearing out of him. He tried to get back up, but his body was shaking so violently that he just kept falling back down. 

Then he saw a small opening on the building right next to him. It was dark and small, but warm dry air was flowing out of it. He could hide in there. Ezra crawled into it, dragging himself through the vents. He had to run. He had to hide…

“Ezra… Ezra!”

His eyes snapped open with a gasp. There was someone leaning over him, and Ezra instinctively started scrambling back. 

“Hey, Hey, it’s okay…!”

A low hum, familiar and comforting, echoed in the back of Ezra’s skull. He blinked a couple times, regaining his bearings. “Kanan…” he realized.

“Yeah.” Kanan sat back in his chair, but kept a comforting hand on Ezra’s shoulder. “Bad dream?”

Ezra nodded as he laid back down with a small moan, the world spinning. His heart was still pounding from the leftovers of his nightmare, even as exhaustion tried to pull him down under again. 

There was a hand in his hair, and the pounding his his chest finally began to calm. He looked up and saw that  Kanan was gazing down at him with a mixture of worry and something else that made Ezra feel, well,  _ safe _ . “Go back to sleep, kiddo…” he said softly. “I’ll be right here.”

Ezra nodded, letting his eyes drift close and falling into a easy sleep.


	8. Caregiver

“You’re hovering,” Ezra said, sipping at his soup.

“I am not,” Kanan protested, not taking his eyes of his datapad.

Ezra rolled his eyes, but didn’t press the point. Honestly, he really appreciated Kanan’s near-constant presence. Hera and the others were great, but there was something about his master which made him feel almost unnaturally calm. Kanan had this aura that he carried everywhere with him, and it enveloped Ezra whenever he was close.

He was ashamed to admit it, but Ezra didn’t really want to be too far from Kanan right now. He was anxious and on edge from everything that had happened in the past week. From the crash, to nearly drowning and freezing to death, to the sickness, the nightmares… He just wanted to feel safe and stable for a little while longer. And Kanan’s presence seemed to do the trick.

“What’re you reading anyway?” Ezra asked, wanting to fill the silence. He was weaker than a lothkitten right now, and as such, he was getting really bored really easily.

“Oh you know… stuff.”

“Stuff?” Ezra echoed.

“Yup.”

Ezra frowned as he set his soup aside, wondering why Kanan was being so reticent. “What, is it, like, porn?”

“What, no!” Kanan almost shouted. “I am not reading porn a mere five feet away from my padawan!”

“Well then, what is it?”

Kanan sighed. “It’s boring stuff, Ezra. You wouldn’t be interested.”

Ezra huffed. That did nothing to quell his curiosity. With a deep breath, he closed his eyes and reached his hand out.

It took a moment, but the datapad went flying out of Kanan’s hands. Ezra was triumphant until it hit his chest a little harder than he expected.

“Ezra…!”

“Well you could have just told me…” Ezra rubbed his chest as he picked up the datapad and read the title.

_Parenting a Child that has Experienced Trauma_

Ezra stiffened, his insides clenching. In his periphery, he could see Kanan cringe. “I guess… I’m just trying to figure out how to… help you…” he said quietly.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t the implication that Ezra was a child or that he was somehow traumatized that had his stomach in knots. Ezra knew full well that he was technically a kid, even if he didn’t feel like it all the time. And the trauma… well, he didn’t like it and he didn’t like thinking about it, but he knew it was there.

_Parenting_

It was not a notion he had thought about for a long time. After all, his parents were long gone. No one else ever wanted him. No one else ever took him in. The idea of a person thinking of themselves as Ezra’s parent was foreign to him. 

It introduced the idea of Kanan being, well, like a parent to him. After all this time, Ezra had someone who cared about him, helped him, made him feel safe…

Ezra started trembling, tears welling in his eyes. He lifted the datapad, hiding behind it in embarrassment. This was so stupid. It’s not like the title of this document actually meant anything. Kanan probably just pulled up the first thing that popped up on the holonet when searching for ‘dealing with a traumatized kid’.

But that meant that’s precisely what Kanan did. He was trying to help Ezra. Not just feed and shelter him…  _help_  him.

Kriff, he was crying.

“Hey…” Kanan sat on the bed next to him. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to - ”

Ezra wrapped his arms around Kanan’s chest, effectively silencing him off. He trembled against Kanan, burying his face against his side and hoping Kanan wouldn’t notice the tears.

Kanan wrapped his arms around Ezra, holding him close. He didn’t say anything else. He just held Ezra, his warm body and protective aura wrapped tightly around his padawan. Ezra let out a small sigh. He was so grateful that he stumbled upon Kanan and the crew of the Ghost.

And somehow, he knew Kanan was too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of my first Whumptober short story!
> 
> I have two more stories to go. One with some major Ezra whump and another with some major Caleb whump (pre-66 Clone War era). Comment and let me know which one you'd like next :)


End file.
